When did you realize? I'm in a cult! I dated a girl in high school who was a total freak

in the bedroom, so when she pressured me into going to church with her, it was hard to say no.

First red flag was when they called me Brother Braniel, as an introduction. Second red flag was

when everyone started yelling gibberish and jumping around.

Third red flag was when they brought out the snakes.

I actually got some pretty harsh looks because I didn't start talking gibberish and jumping around.

It was definitely a case of,

You're here, this is what you do, peer pressure.

So that's how I visited a snake handling Holiness Alabama Backwater Church. My college friend invited me to a service at her new church, later told me that the, quote,

church, met in a barn and they spent their last service literally vomiting up their demons.

Fifty or so people just wholly vomiting all at once. I went to my 20th reunion

five years ago, and the woman who organized it I've known since third grade. Very nice, smart,

charismatic, the whole package, and she told me about her self-help and life coaching company.

I said that sounds cool and maybe I could benefit. So she said she would hook it up later.

I live in L.A., and when I got back, I had an email introducing me to her colleague,

whose email domain was esplosangeles.com, which sounded weird. A quick trip to their web page

and a Google search, and I found out she was trying to get me to join NXIVM, which is now all over the

news. Google NXIVM, all caps by the way, and steal yourself. I noped right out of there and I'm

glad I did as a bunch of them are going to jail now. The therapeutic boarding school, Ilan.

The first night I got there, everyone told me how I'd get used to

everything. And I did, I fell into their trap. I didn't realize how messed up it was until the school

got shut down by the FBI and the owner got charged with child endangerment and inappropriate

...